Friday, March 17, 2006

Roasting Things

So my roomie is making Shabbos lunch and since our purim activities sort of made it difficult to focus on planning for Shabbos, Hippoboy and I are joining in. This is rather rare, as usually, we switch off hosting meals in our apt. Should be lots of fun.

She's making: Chicken roasted on a bed of grains (originally it was rice pilaf but there wasnt enough to cover the whole roasting pan so I had the idea of cooking up some bulghur wheat to mix with the rice,)- I think she is seasoning the chicken with fennel, orange peel, lemon and orange juices, garlic, ginger, and some other things. It looks delicious. And Deli Roll- which, due to the nature of our filo dough, which is decidedly unpliable due to being in the freezer too long, is going to turn into a deli casserole instead.

I'm making: Roasted green beans and Roasted butternut squash. Now, my basic techinique with roasting veggies is to cut them up, blast the oven to 450 or 425, dribble on some olive oil, salt, spices and/or herbs, and pop it in the oven. I got a little more elaborate with these.

Green beans- i had a whole big bag of frozen green beans which i opened and poured into the pan with about half a head of slivered garlic. I poured on some olive oil, soy sauce, honey, and balsamic vinegar. I panicked when i tasted this because it tasted really harsh and vinegary. But then I remembered that acetic acid will vaporize readily. So its all good. And I roasted till the top ones were shrively. I like a mix of really crispy and brown and some still sort of green and fresh when I roast greeny veggies. Very delicious.

Squash- I had a few drips of toasted sesame oil that I wanted to use, so i dribbled that over the squash and a few shakes of garam masala powder, salt, and sugar, because this squash was very a very pale orange inside and I did not think it looked so optimal. Then I thought that the sesame smell was very overwhelming, so I cut it with some regular olive oil. Its roasting now, so I guess we will see.